


dove of peace, dove of death

by orphan_account



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Character Death, Fake AH Crew, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, it started out happy i swear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7230190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeremy and Trevor meet in kindergarten, so young, so innocent. They are invincible in that child-like way, nothing can break that mindset but age.<br/>And they do grow older, and people come and go, but they do not leave each other's sides.</p>
            </blockquote>





	dove of peace, dove of death

They meet in kindergarten, as cliched as that is. Jeremy is wearing clothes that he hates, they’re too stiff, too new, and this kid next to him has on lightup shoes, glowing with every step he takes. They bond on the blacktop, on the painted states, hopscotch isn’t a girls’ game, it’s their game, and they draw on the brick walls of the school with chalk.

His name, the kid with the glowing neon shoes, his name is Trevor and he so, so easily becomes Jeremy’s best friend. They get along so well and it’s honestly incredible. They are the kindergarten equivalent of a power couple, they always get the best crayons. Trevor uses them more than Jeremy, though. It’s easy, it’s lovely, it’s simple.

They grow up together, sleepovers and pillow fights and for them everything is perfect.

During one of these sleepovers, these third grader hang outs, they venture out into the woods and it’s dark and everything makes noise and oh God, everything is moving.

“It’s okay.” Trevor whispers, he can sense Jeremy’s fear, is it just something he can do or is it because he’s Jeremy’s best friend? Jeremy doesn’t know and he doesn’t really care. “We’ve been out here in the daytime before. It’s no different.”

“But light protects us.” Jeremy says back, voice just as soft. “It makes us warm, keeps our hearts beating. We need light, Trevor.” Jeremy has the soul of a poet, childlike perfection in every single word that falls from his mouth.

“We have light.” Trevor points upwards to the moon, partially obscured by tree limbs that look like they’re holding the moon, trying their very hardest to tear the fabric of night apart. “That’s the sun, just reflected, but it’s still the sun. If you look in a mirror, you’re still you.”

“I guess.” Jeremy admits and a twig crunches under his shoe, he flinches against Trevor. Trevor takes his hand in his own, running his thumb over Jeremy’s knuckles, it’s comforting, but a symbol of affection they don’t quite understand yet, they’re just children.

“Do you want more light?” Trevor’s teeth glow pale as he smiles with his words and Jeremy nods, he does, he needs the light. Trevor brings his foot down, hard against the forest floor and the pine needles and the earth, and bright pink light flashes from his shoes, illuminating the space around them. Jeremy laughs as they walk.

“You look so weird stomping.” Jeremy giggles and Trevor huffs.

“Well, it wouldn’t look weird if you were doing it with me.” So, they stomp through the forest in the dead of night, hands clasped, entrenched in the darkness, and they go deeper than they’ve ever gone before. They don’t know where they are, but they are walking with a purpose, so they can’t possibly be lost. And in this false lost, the childish sense of invincibility, they find something deep in the woods, the thickets, the brush.

“Is that a ladder?” Jeremy asks, his fear forgotten as the light from the peaked moon shines down upon the pair and aforementioned ladder.

“I think so.” Trevor drops Jeremy’s hand to walk the few steps over and test the wooden blocks nailed into the tree. “It seems safe. Do you want to climb it?” Jeremy nods so they climb and they climb and they climb.

“This tree is so tall.” Jeremy pants, carefully wiping one hand on the front of his shirt.

“Everything seems tall to you, Jeremy.” Trevor jokes, looking beneath him at his friend. “I think we’re almost there, though.”

“How old do you think this tree is?” Jeremy runs a hand over the rough bark, this tree is so tall, so tall, Jeremy thinks that they’ve climbed past the moon and they’re well into the sky.

“Dunno.” Trevor says. “Ninety three years old.”

“That’s old.” Jeremy replies, sagely, in the way only a kid can sound. “Will we get that old?”

“Of course.” Trevor rolls his eyes. “I’ll protect you and we can get a house together and get old.” And finally, finally, they reach their destination, a tree house tucked perfectly into the branches of the old tree, well-made and weathered, but perfect and not in danger of falling down, even if the boards shift a little under Trevor’s feet. It’s beautiful and perfect in their minds and they fall asleep pressed up against one another.

They wake up to a faint echo of their names. Jeremy stirs first, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“That’s gotta be our parents.” Jeremy says. “We probably need to go.” He makes his way to the trapdoor and begins to lift it.

“Wait.” Trevor grabs the back of Jeremy’s shirt, cloth fisted in his hands. “We shouldn’t tell them about this place.”

“Of course not.” Jeremy shakes his hand, he sounds offended. “This is our place.”

So they go down and they face the wrath of their parents, but once they’re done being grounded, they sneak back up to their treehouse and Trevor marks it, draws their symbol on one of the boards, Trevor has always been better at art.

They continue growing up and it’s good, they’re friends, and their treehouse is their semblance of escape, and it’s perfect, they’re perfect. They are best friends, nothing more, nothing less.

It’s not until the last year of middle school, the last day of middle school, that Jeremy realizes that there might be something more with Trevor. He realizes it in their treehouse of all places, sitting next to Trevor. Trevor with his black hair and lazy smile and light up shoes that are definitely too childish, but Jeremy got them for him as a joke and an odd way to remember how they met, so he wears them.

“High school is going to be different.” Trevor laughs in the dry heat, the high tree, their place.

“Yeah.” Jeremy says, because it is, it’s going to be so different. “As long as I have you, though, I think we’re going to be okay.”

“Of course.” Trevor laughs again. “We’ve got to live to be ninety three so we can get that house together.” Jeremy looks at Trevor, really, really looks, and he can see Trevor years from now in Trevor in this moment, and with that future Trevor he can see himself and God damn, he could spend the rest of his life with his best friend. And this, this last year of middle school, this last day of eighth grade, in the dry heat, the high tree, their place, Jeremy realizes that he might just be in love with Trevor.

“This summer is going to be great.” Jeremy says.

“It always is.” Trevor nods, kicking Jeremy’s shoe with his own.

“No.” Jeremy answers because that’s not quite good enough. “You’ve got to promise.”

“I promise.” Trevor smiles and they stay in the tree house until the sky falls into a dusky purple.

But there are things that they can’t control in this world, their understanding of this is beginning to form as the childhood invincibility falls away from them in a chrysalis shell. It is a good summer, a great summer, and then Trevor’s parents decide to get divorced and Trevor cries on the phone to Jeremy and then Trevor shows up at Jeremy’s window that night.

“What are you doing?” Jeremy hisses at Trevor, his parents are asleep in the room over.

“I’m running away.” Trevor bites his lip, fingers digging into the shingles. “I want you to come.” Jeremy is blind, so blind, he would follow Trevor anywhere, to the ends of the earth, to the edge of a cliff.

“Of course.” Jeremy breathes and he dumps the old binders of his backpack out onto his floor and quickly, quickly stuffs it with clothes and the money he has hidden in the top drawer of his desk and he grabs a flashlight from his closet. “Let’s go.”

“Let’s sleep in the treehouse tonight.” Trevor says as he grabs Jeremy’s hand and helps him out through the window. Jeremy nods, he can’t disagree, not with Trevor, so they flee everything, anything, and return to the woods from their childhood, the light from Trevor’s shoes blinking erratically as he tries so desperately to escape. They make it to their tree, their ladder, before Trevor breaks down, sobbing into Jeremy’s shoulder. “This was so stupid, this is so stupid. God, I can’t believe I dragged you out here.”

“It’s okay, really.” Jeremy assures Trevor, rubbing his shoulder. “I’d do anything for you.”

“God.” Trevor laughs through his tears. “I guess you’re going to be the one protecting me until we’re ninety three.”

“Why don’t we protect each other?” Jeremy suggest, petting Trevor’s hair. “We’ll probably both need it.” Trevor laughs again.

“Yeah, yeah, probably.” Trevor takes a shuddering breath, shaking against Jeremy’s skin. “Let’s go home. Let’s go home, Jeremy.” They leave their backpacks in their treehouse, just in case they need to run away again. They pick their way back through the thickets and the underbrush and Jeremy sees Trevor back to his house before making his way back to his own.

The rest of the summer still isn’t great and Jeremy feels for his friend, for Trevor, the boy with the light up shoes and the wide grin and love to give to everything. When Trevor’s parents do finally split, the two spend a whole day in the treehouse. Trevor doesn’t cry, just curls against Jeremy’s ribs and Jeremy lets him. 

And then when they finally do go to highschool, Trevor was right, it is so different, but they have each other. It’s fun, their teenage years, and they do stupid things and they steal small things from convenience stores because it doesn’t actually hurt anybody and they eat the stolen goods, usually packets of nuts or cookies, in their treehouse and it’s good. This is all they’ve ever wanted, all they’ve ever needed.

Their second year of highschool, they fall in with a group. Nice guys, so nice, but Jeremy doesn’t tell his parents about them because, well, because they aren’t the most law abiding people ever, but they’re Jeremy’s friends.

“We’re going to start a crew.” Jordan tells them as he passes the joint to Cole, sweet smoke filling the abandoned park that they’re sitting in. They’re all kind of weirdly, pleasantly high and Trevor’s head is in Jeremy’s lap. “Like, after we graduate. Pack up all of our stuff and go to a new city, start doing some shit, getting rich.”

“If you want, if you’re interested, we’ll stick around until you two graduate.” Maggie offers as Cole lets a mouthful of smoke flutter into the air like an apprehensive butterfly. “You’ve got quick fingers, we could use that.”

“Also, we like you guys.” Cole adds. “So, what d’you say?”

“I’m in.” Jeremy nods and this is Trevor’s turn to follow Jeremy, so he nods too.

Two years later and they graduate, say goodbye to their families, spinning a tale about moving to get more job opportunities and to see a new place. They pile into Jordan’s minivan, his old, soccer mom minivan, and they drive, across the highways, it’s a journey, something weird, something odd, something new every time the sun dawns over the road continuing in front of them forever.

Jeremy and Maggie are sitting on the top of the car in the dead of night, everyone else is asleep in the van, lights from the nearby highway flood the landscape every few minutes. The stars are spread above them in swaths, glowing and watching, silently. They hold the memories of the boy with the glowing shoes and his faithful follower and they hold the future of the same pair.

“Get your shit together.” Maggie says suddenly as the red brake lights from a distant car fade into the distance, into the darkness. 

“What?” Jeremy asks, he is utterly confused.

“You love him.” Maggie states. “You’ve got to tell him.”

“I will, I will.” Jeremy twists his fingers together. “I just don’t want it to change us.”

“It won’t.” Maggie assures him. “Just get it together and tell him.”

“Yeah.” Jeremy says and they fall back into silence beneath the listening, watching stars.

They get to their new city and they get an apartment. They’ve only been there for an hour, but they know that the apartment is in a bad part of town. They sit down around their brand new Ikea table and Jordan throws some paper at Trevor.

“Give us a logo, art boy.” Jordan says and Trevor smiles and he draws.

They go out the next day, get their mark tattooed on their arms, they’re going to fucking rule the city, they are fucking powerful.

They pull of heists, it’s simple, it’s easy, they each have their place. Jordan is the frontman, bright smile, easy words, but he’s the leader to, because he can direct, voice shifting so easily between and between. Cole can hack, he’s good at it, code typing out as his fingers blur across the keyboard. Maggie plans everything in a notebook, so smart, so sly, a grin always on her face, this is what she dreamed of. Trevor is subtle, sneaky and silent, he’s a thief, everything in the world at his fingertips. Jeremy is muscle, intimidation tactics, and he’s damned good and what he does. They rack up money and their kill count stays at a solid zero. They get a reputation, they’re dangerous, and no one knows that they spend their off days getting high and playing board games in their shitty apartment. 

And then something goes wrong during a heist, they get split up, everyone scatters and Jeremy and Trevor end up trapped in an alleyway, a man advancing on them. So, Trevor, Trevor with his wide smile, Trevor with his light up shoes that flash across the brick walls, Trevor protects Jeremy and Trevor shoots the man.

They walk back to their apartment rattled, but then it’s like the trance has been broken and their monetary value rises as their kill count does and their reputation grows even bigger. 

It’s been a good two years in the city, Jeremy and Trevor and Maggie and Cole, good friends, the dream team in this city, their city. Jeremy still hasn’t told Trevor, a right time just hasn’t presented itself. Jeremy loves his friends, their city, their mark spray painted across alley walls. It’s a beautiful kind of terror.

And then something happens, the night after a big heist and they’re all asleep in the apartment. There is an explosion and Jeremy wakes with his head ringing and his vision blurry and fire, flames everywhere. Someone must be targeting them, Jeremy coughs, so much smoke. He can see Maggie and Jordan in the doorway to the apartment, Cole in their arms, a wall of fire between them. Maggie shouts something to him, pointing at the window before the fire roars and the wall grow higher, obscuring the others from his view. He blinks, eyes watering, trying desperately to wake Trevor on the couch next to him. The flames come closer and he resigns to carrying Trevor, breaking the window and limping down the fire escape. Trevor snaps out of it on the ground and they flee running, no doubt in their heads that the crew will find them when it’s less dangerous.

“Let’s go back.” Trevor says three days later, they’re holed up in a bad motel in the outskirts of town. “Just to see if they’re at the apartment.” So, Jeremy follow Trevor back to the scene, back to their building, he can’t just not follow Trevor, even if he’s afraid of what they will find.

Their building is charred, their floor ravaged by the fire, smoke stained. Trevor takes a breath and Jeremy takes a breath and an old woman, dressed in rags, approaches them.

“Did you live here?” She asks, voice rasping. 

“Yes.” Trevor says, he’s much more in control than Jeremy is at this moment. “We’re looking for our friends. We need our friends.” 

“I’m sorry, darlin’.” She puts a gnarled hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “No one made it out.”

“We need to go in there.” Jeremy breathes, touching Trevor’s shoulder gently. “We need to- We need to look.”

“Fire escape.” The woman advises. “I won’t tell.” So together they climb the rusted fire escape, step after step until they reach their floor and duck inside. Everything is in shambles. The fucking table from Ikea, their heist table, in charred splinters across the floor. 

“Let’s look for stuff.” Trevor says, voice quiet, in feels wrong to be loud in a place like this. They walk numbly through the shambles, shifting ashes, searching for memories, searching for anything. Jeremy’s hand keeps flitting to the mark on his arm, their dove, their symbol, they thought it was so funny when Trevor drew it, doves were supposed to symbolize peace. 

There by the doorway, Jeremy finds something, a necklace he gave Maggie when they were in high school, a simple Saturn on a silver chain. He slips it over his head and he keeps looking, he wants something from every single one of his friends. Jeremy glances over at Trevor, kneeling in the ashes and clutching a soot covered knife, Cole’s knife. Jeremy stumbles into another room, he can’t think, and somehow in the ashes he finds Jordan’s ring, tarnished and dirty, and he slides it on, he can’t cry, he can’t cry here. Everything smears together and somewhere in the blur he finds Cole’s camera, partially melted, but otherwise undamaged. Trevor taps his shoulder and Jeremy turns, Trevor has Maggie’s notebook in his hands and Jordan’s favourite pin clipped to his collar. 

“We should go.” Trevor says and they climb back down the fire escape and they drive back to the motel. It is only when the door is closed that Jeremy breaks and he sobs, cries, tears flooding down his face.

“We lost them. We lost them, all of them.” Jeremy chokes out. “How could we lose them?” Jeremy grabs Trevor’s hands in his own. “Trevor, Trevor, we lost them, I can’t lose you, I can’t lose you. I love you too much. Please, Trevor, please, I love you.” They kiss and it’s salty with tears and sadness and memories, too many memories, and Jeremy can’t breathe, but that’s fine, and they are trying to escape, find their treehouse in each other’s minds.

So they flee again, pack everything into their car, and they drive, a poor imitation of that drive so many years ago. They drive to the opposite side of the country, they drive to the coast, and Jeremy collapses, crying, on the sand.

It takes time, so much more time than before, to establish themselves in this new city, it’s just the two of them this time, but they earn a reputation, people know who they are. They earn money and they kill people and they kill and they kill and they kill and they are in love in the face of sadness. The stars watch from above, all knowing, never telling.

They crash a heist, it’s an accident. Kind of. But they take the money and fire off a few rounds at the bigger crew, careful not to hit anyone, they really don’t need a blood rivalry right now.

“I love you.” Jeremy breathes as Trevor drives, swerving around other cars and other people. “God damn it, I love you.”

Their mark changes, it’s the dove, the dove mixed with their older, older one, the one carved into their treehouse back on the east coast. 

This crew, the one that they crashed, they learn more about them, the Fake AH Crew, the ruling dynasty in this city, and they keep running into them. Not even to take their heist, they just walk into a bank trying to deposit some money while they’re robbing it.

“Hey.” The mustachioed man nods at them. “You took our heist. That was some nice work.”

“Are you complimenting our rivals?” A red haired woman asks, shaking her head. Geoff and Jack, Jeremy has read about them. They’re legends, but he’s not about to admit it.

“Not our rivals, they didn’t kill any of us.” Geoff shrugs and takes the few steps over, pressing a card into Jeremy’s hand. “You should think about joining our crew.”

“You didn’t talk to me about this!” Jack sounds hurt and she glares at Geoff.

“I’m in charge! I say they can join!” Geoff turns back to the pair. “Think about it.” Jeremy walks out and Trevor follows him, he has to.

They don’t join the crew, it’s too soon, they don’t give it a second thought because they simply can not do it, it’s out of the question.

It’s out of the question until Trevor gets shot and he’s bleeding in Jeremy’s arms and Jeremy has to protect him because, fuck, they’re not even close to ninety three yet. So he takes Trevor, he runs with Trevor, he takes Trevor to the address that was on the card. Trevor’s blood stains his arms as he knocks on the door, one, two, three, times. The door opens and Jeremy pushes the person who opened it aside, marching into the penthouse without fear because his friend is dying, he is focused on being afraid of that, of life without Trevor, not a crew. Geoff Ramsey smiles at him, then frowns as his gaze flickers down to Trevor in his arms.

“Save him.” Jeremy demands. “And we’ll join your crew.”

“Call Caleb.” Geoff commands and the one that opened the door -Gavin, he thinks- disappears into another room. Somebody takes Trevor from his arms, it’s probably Ryan, and Jeremy sinks to his knees on the floor. His fingers run over Maggie’s necklace, knocking it against Jordan’s ring, he can’t lose another one, he can’t lose anyone else, he can’t lose Trevor, and he starts to cry on the carpet. He falls asleep there and no one has the heart or the courage to move him. 

He wakes up so much later and Geoff is standing over him.

“He’ll make it.” Geoff assures him, helping Jeremy stand up. “He’ll be fine in just a little bit.”

“Thank you.” Jeremy nods. “Thank you so much.”

“Not a problem.” Geoff grins. “Now, if you’re going to be sticking around, I should probably introduce you to the rest of the crew. So, he meets everyone, Jack again, Gavin, Michael, Ryan, and they’re all so damn nice, so, so nice, and he feels so, so guilty as he twists Jordan’s ring around his finger. 

Trevor gets better, he’s fine three weeks later, and it’s such a relief. Jeremy is sitting at the table with Michael and Gavin, playing cards, when Trevor walks in. Jeremy nearly flips the table as he jumps up to kiss Trevor. When they break apart, both Michael and Gavin are looking at them.

“I guess that’s how it is.” Gavin smiles and Trevor shrugs.

“I know I’ve just dashed your hopes.” Trevor presses himself against Jeremy’s side. “Jeremy, help! They all want to date me!” Gavin flushes and deals Trevor into the card game. 

They’re a good crew, Jeremy and Trevor fit in perfectly, and they are successful, so successful, but the memories flare up sometimes and this is how Geoff comes to find Jeremy drinking himself to death on the kitchen floor.

“Hey.” Geoff sits down next to him. “I get what you’re going through. I used to have a crew too. I mean, another one.” Geoff takes the bottle of whiskey from him and takes a gulp of it. “Mine tried to kill me. What happened with yours?”

“They died.” Jeremy rasps, throat hoarse. “It was my fault.”

“Did you kill them?” Geoff asks and Jeremy shakes his head. “Then it wasn’t your fault. Tell me about them.” So, Jeremy tells him about everything, about Maggie and Cole and Jordan, sparing no detail, until the sun rises and the whiskey lays forgotten on the floor. 

Jeremy and Trevor, their reputation grows, the new kids of the Fake AH, fresh blood that spills even fresher blood. They’re good, as good as you can get, even if one of them wears light up shoes that throw pink light everywhere he walks.

But they don’t forget the before, before this crew, before this coast, before this chapter in their lives.

Trevor looks through Maggie’s notebook, reads it like a bedtime story, and he plans out heists with ink spilling from Jordan’s pen, and he slits throats with Cole’s knife, protecting Jeremy as he goes.

Jeremy wears Maggie’s necklace around his neck, he never takes it off, and he wears Jordan’s ring around his finger, even after it is joined by one that Trevor gives him after he proposes, and he uses Cole’s camera, taking pictures of Trevor and himself and the crew and everything else, filling up SD card after SD card, protecting Trevor as he goes.

This is what they would have wanted, this is what they would have urged them both to do, to move on, but remember them.

The three look down at Jeremy and Trevor from the stars, watching them, holding their past in their hearts and their future in their hands, protecting them both for as long as they live.

**Author's Note:**

> look at that! This was fun to write. I've been working on two long things recently, so it was nice to get some fresh ideas down and write something shorter. You can find me on tumblr at taptaptapping.tumblr.com  
> and! if you have any questions, statements, or headcanons you can leave them in the comments below!  
> <3


End file.
